Luna’s Mate Bond

Chapter 6

~Michael’s POV~

Cody howls gleefully in my mind. “Our mate is beautiful! We need to claim and mark her right now!”

“Whoa dude, chill out! We only just met her!” We hear a throat clear and my mate breaks eye contact looking down and pulling away from me. Only then do I start to realise something is wrong. She shouldn’t want to get away from me? She glances nervously at Blake and starts apologising profusely, trying to gather up the items she dropped.

“What the hell is wrong with you Omega?! Clean up this mess now!” Blake yells at my mate, making her flinch. Turning to me he laughs it off, “Sorry about that, this one is real clumsy and a bit stupid sometimes!“

“Hahaha! Ahhhh, ever the gentleman our Michael! Always saving damsels in distress!” Austin winks at Blake attempting to deflect his attention from the moment I just shared with my mate.

Blake scoffs uneasily. “That girl is no damsel in distress, she’s just an omega, no need to worry about her! Easily replaceable too! She doesn’t even have a wolf!” Venom in his words.

Cody and I are seething! How dare anyone talk about our mate like that?!

“Easy Michael” Austin’s voice through our mind link is like a bucket of cold water. “I’m going to hazard a guess here and assume that’s your mate, and if she is you need to tread carefully. Not only does she appear to be terrified, but Blake already seems suspicious and displeased. It doesn’t take a genius to work out something happened between you and that girl just now, and we don’t know enough about whatever is going on here yet. And if what Blake just said is true and she doesn’t have a wolf, then she might not even feel the mate bond, you risk scaring her even more if you cause a scene.”

“She did seem to be really nervous” Cody agrees. “And she practically jumped out of our arms, refused to make eye contact again and ran way. What Blake said might be true too, I couldn’t sense her wolf…”

“You’re right, on all counts.” I reply to Austin . “We need to get to the bottom of this pronto! I’m not going to be able to keep Cody away from our mate for long, nor do I want to stay away from her either! We need her!”

I do my best to return my attention to Alpha Blake who is once again talking about himself and Skyridge as he gives Austin and I a tour of the pack house. However I can almost see the gears turning in his head as he watches us from the corner of his eye. I’m careful to give nothing away.

~Megan’s POV~

I run panicked to the supply closet and hide in there for a moment trying to calm down my racing heart and rapid breathing. Lilly is howling and jumping around in my head and not helping at all! I can still feel the ghost of the tingles in my skin where that guy caught me before I hit the floor. I felt a shock when he touched me, like jolts of electricity running across my skin except it was a very pleasant feeling, not painful at all. I’ve never felt anything like it! I remember his arms around me, holding me close with a gentleness I haven’t felt since mum… and those eyes! And the way he looked at me… like I was the most precious thing in the world!

“Lilly what the hell is going on?! What just happened?!” I ask her through our mind link, still careful not to do anything to draw attention to us.

“Mate! That was our mate!” She replies excitedly!

“What?! We have a mate?! Oh my goddess!” I’m in total shock, shaking and my breath is coming in short sharp bursts, I’m not getting enough oxygen and the room is starting to spin.

Realising I’m starting to have a panic attack, Lilly finally calms down a bit and starts to coax me through it. “It’s ok Megan, sit down for a moment and calm yourself. You’ll end up in even more trouble with Blake if we don’t get back out there soon. Deep, slow breaths… in for 3, hold for 3, out for 3… that’s it, now tell me 5 things you can see?”

I focus on my breathing, counting like Lilly suggested, and slowly start feeling myself calm down. “I see the mop, the bucket, a bottle of Sheen, a bottle of Windex and some paper towels.” I tell Lilly, running through my grounding exercises now that my breathing is better under control.

Finally feeling calmer I gather up some towels, take a final deep breath, and head back out to the foyer to clean up the mess I made when I slipped over. Part of me hopes my mate is still out there but that would be bad, we can’t afford to have him make a scene. I don’t know how the hell he’s going to get me away from Blake. If he even wants me that is. I mean he must have known that we are his mate and he didn’t say anything or claim me.

“It’s not like you gave him a chance to?” Lilly snorts in my head. “You ran off in a panic within seconds!”

“You know I had to Lilly, even though I didn’t know what was actually happening at the time we couldn’t afford to stick around, we made a mess and a scene in front of Blake and his guests! He would have lost his s**t and goddess knows what he would have done to us!”

“Pffft he wouldn’t have done anything but yell at us a little in front of his guests! He’s too much of a coward! It’ll be when he catches us alone that we will be in real trouble!”

I shiver in fear knowing Lilly is right. Hopefully we can stay away from Blake until we figure this s**t out. We will have to try to catch our mate by himself though, we need to warn him about Blake and try to come up with a plan to get us out of here.

“Our mate is an Alpha, a much stronger one than Blake, I’m sure he will be able to help us!” Lilly has a lot more faith than I dare to hope to.

“I don’t know Lilly, you know as well as I do that no one is allowed to leave the pack unless they are mated to higher up members of our allied packs. Hell, barely anyone joins our pack either, but at least that’s more common than anyone leaving…”

Entering the foyer I carefully look around, checking the coast is clear before I quickly clean up the mess. Then I head for kitchen to cook the chicken and serve lunch. Of course the other omegas who should’ve been helping me only turn up just in time to serve. I roll my eyes, cursing them in my mind as they start taking food out. I’m preparing to enter the dining room myself when I smell that unique scent again.

~ Michael’s POV ~

Alpha Blake had shown us around the pack house and immediate grounds while boasting about himself and introducing us to pack members he deemed important enough, like his beta John and the future Alpha Kaleb. I can’t believe he managed to drag out the tour for over half an hour before showing us to our rooms and telling us that he will see us in the dining room for lunch in a few minutes. It was absolute torture having to listen to him prattle on and on, pretending to be interested and listen when all I wanted to do was go and find my mate!

Thankfully Austin took the lead with questions and answers while I remained mostly quiet thinking about her and how to approach Blake about her. I have to find a way to talk to her alone. I had last gotten a glimpse of her entering the kitchen, so as soon as Blake disappeared I headed there, linking Austin on the way. “Austin, I’m going to try to find my mate to hopefully talk to her privately before lunch, can you go to the dining hall early and distract Blake please?”

“Sure thing Alpha, but be careful, Blake won’t react well to you sneaking around and you don’t want to get her in anymore trouble than she already seems to be in.”

As I approach the kitchen I catch my mate’s enticing honey and rose scent, good she’s still in there, but she’s not alone. I listen carefully as I walk slowly in that direction pretending to look around and once I hear the others leave I enter quietly. She’s grabbing some dishes with her back to me when I walk in and I see her stiffen, realising she has caught my scent and sensed me behind her.

I clear my throat but before I can say anything she slowly turns to face me and Cody howls happily in my mind at being so close to her. As she raises her face to meet my eyes I get my first proper look at her, noticing bruises on her beautiful face and accidentally let out a low growl. She flinches away from me and I curse myself and Cody for scaring her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you, I just noticed your bruises and couldn’t help it, I don’t like seeing any female hurt or scared, but especially not my mate.” I tell her quietly and give her a gentle smile. Her beautiful hazel eyes zap to mine when I say mate, wide and scared, but tentatively hopeful too. “I’m Michael Felter, Alpha of the Hidden Eclipse Pack from Kentucky and I’m very happy to have found you, I’ve been searching for you, my mate, for quite some time now.”

“I-I’m Megan Somberton, i-it’s nice to meet you too.“ She replies quietly. Her voice is mesmerising, smooth and sweet like honey despite her nervous stuttering.

“Told you Megan was a nice name!” Cody practically purrs in my head, distracting me momentarily. Wait did she just say Megan Somberton?! F@#k! She’s Blake’s daughter! “Well this is going to complicate things…” I say to Cody. “But if she’s his daughter why did he call her an omega? And act like she was nothing to him?!”

“Maybe he’s embarrassed because she doesn’t have a wolf? Blake does seem like the type of person that would think lower of someone without a wolf…” Cody muses.

Megan shifts awkwardly and breaks eye contact, making me realise I’ve just been staring at her and haven’t replied. Whoops! I go to say something to break the now awkward silence but she cuts me off. “You can’t say anything to Blake about us being mates, he will lose his s@#t! There’s no way he will accept me having a mate, let alone it being you.”

“You’re his daughter aren’t you?” I ask her quietly, barely managing to hold back a growl at the mention of Blake not accepting our mate bond. “F@#k him! We will make him accept it if we have to!” Cody roars in fury in my head. “She is acknowledging our bond and hasn’t said anything about not accepting us herself though!” I point out, hoping to calm him down a little.

“Y-yes, but most people don’t even know I exist and anyone who knows doesn’t care. Please, don’t say anything or act different around me. He will kill me! I-if you actually want to accept me we will have to find a way for me to escape, he’ll never let me leave willingly. No one ever leaves unless they’re mated to someone from our allied packs, and your pack isn’t one of those is it?”

“No we aren’t, most of Blake’s allies aren’t good packs, most of them are involved in illegal activities. I’m actually surprised Blake is hosting this year’s mate ball and agreed to us meeting him. Any previous attempts to reach out to him by myself, my father before me, or our allies have been shut down immediately.”

Watching Megan as I spoke I could see many emotions flit across her face. Most notably fear, anger, resignation and what I thought to be intrigue and contemplation but wasn’t sure. She opened her mouth to reply but we were interrupted by the door to the dining room slamming open.